Here’s a guest post from my thoughtful and thought-provoking sister-in-law Abigail Scott. She’s been writing tight poems for a couple decades now (yes, she started quite early). I find this one of hers, inspired by the book of Isaiah, to be particularly moving.  Enjoy.

In a vision, I walked through the annals of time
And the past and the future all merged in one line
With the threads of the nations’ existence entwined
Like the strings of an instrument God had designed.
I saw many powers who reigned on the earth.
They were arrogant, loudly proclaiming their worth.
Yet they rose and they fell, like the swells of the tide
Each self-proclaimed lord overthrown in his pride.
Man repeatedly sought for a warrior to reign
To unite all the earth in one glorious name,
And they worshipped themselves and the work of their hands
So the Sovereign God wasted their works and their lands.
Yet the whispered refrain, resonating through space:
A call to the humble to worship by grace
And a promise that Yahweh would sovereignly raise
A Prince to bring peace, who is ancient of days.

Then I saw through the struggle, the war and the loot
From a root that was withered, God raised up a shoot.
While the world, in each palace, sought humanly might
The eternal King came among cattle at night.
For pride wages war and it antetypes trust
Which worships the God who has made us from dust.
The Creator thus came, weak and helpless on earth
Despised and rejected and lowly of birth.
In the suffering flesh, He came to us humble
And this was the form that caused proud men to stumble
For Greeks search for wisdom, Jews ask for a sign
But eternity’s King laid aside the sublime.
No sign did He offer, but three days of death
And the wisdom that yields up immortal God’s breath.
So the rulers of earth found Him quiet and still
Yet they never imagined the Sovereign God’s will
For they missed the refrain, resonating through space:
A call to the humble to worship by grace
And a promise that Yahweh would sovereignly raise
A Prince to bring peace as the ancient of days.
As a servant, He claimed what was His from the start:
The birthright to reign as the King in each heart.

Ah, but time leads the way to a permanent reign
That fulfills all the thrills of the whispered refrain.

And I saw, in my vision, the scope of all history
Not a line, but a circle, eternity’s mystery.
The Alpha, beginning, the ancient of days,
Once born as a man and thus knowing our ways,
A King who is gentle, and humble, a lamb
Will return as a lion, a sword in His hand
To execute justice and overthrow pride
Of the kingdoms that rise and that fall like the tide.
The beginning and end both meet in one place
In the person and work of the God of all grace
Who touched time in humility, born of the dust
To bow every knee to a King we can trust.
His reign is eternal, His crown won’t rescind
For the annals of time will conclude with this end:
The refrain, a crescendo that overturns space,
When the whole world will worship, forever, His grace,
His Sovereign compelling our eternal praise
For the Prince who brings peace as the ancient of days.